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THE AMMSTKATION AND THE WAR 



The Duty of Supporting the Government— Arbitrary Arrests— Or 
or the War to Save the Union— The Question 
of Reconstruction. 



REMARKS OP ME. H. J. RAYMOND. 



OF NEW YOEK, 



WILMINGTON, DELAWARE, 

NOVEMBER 6, 1863. 



From the Delaware Slate Journal. 
A very large meeting of the citizens of Wil- 
mington was held at the City Hall on the evening 
of Friday, Nov. 6, which was addressed by Messrs. 
H. J. Raymond, of New-York, and Butler G. 
Noble, of Wisconsin. Mr. Raymond's remarks 
were substantially as follows : 

Mr. President : I am very glad to avail myself 
of the invitation which brings me here to-night, 
and which enables me to take part with you, 
Citizens of our Common Country, in an election 
which is to have an important influence on its 
welfare and its destiny. It is the first time in my 
life that I have ever attempted to make a politi- 
cal speech in a Slave State. I have always be- 
lieved, and have always acted on the belief, 
that Slavery, as it has existed in some of 
the States of this Union, was primarily 
and mainly a local affair, and that it be- 
longed to the people of the States in which 
it existed to take such steps in regard to its re- 
moval as their own conviction of justice and of 
public policy might dictate. I have, therefore, in 
all that I have done during my connection with 
public affairs, which has been neither very long 
nor very important, confined my action on this 
subject to those aspects of Slavery which touched 
the general welfare— which affected the rights, 
the interests and the destiny of the country at 



large. I have believed, for many years, in commoi' 
with a very large portion of the American people; 
that Slavery was endeavoring to usurp, and to a 
very great extent had usurped, a degree of con- 
trol over the National Government far greatc i 
than it was entitled to exercise under the Consti- 
tution of the United States. I had seen si 
holders filling the Presidency for forty-nine out of 
the seventy years during which the Government 
had existed, and dictating the conduct ol that hieh 
office for thirteen more. I had seen the slavehoM- 
ing interest, as a distinct interest of the country, 
not only different from, but hostile to alt its other 
great interests, controlling, with absolute and in- 
tolerant sway, the army and navy of the United 
States, the distribution of public patronage in all 
departments of the Government, proscribing ev 
ery man in every section ot»the country who held 
Slavery to be an evil, influencing the legislation 
of Congress, dictating or overruling the decisions 
of the Supreme Court, depraving the organization 
and action of political parties and aiming 
through their action to make Slavery, as a 
political power, permanent and perpetual in the 
Government of the United States. I had seen it 
grasping at complete control of the Territories of 
the United States, for the sake of making them 
the basis of new extensions of its political power. 
All these things it had achieved, or was 
s.iming to accomplish, while the slaveholdlng 
; class constituted less than one-fiftieth part of 



the population of the United States, and while in 
every element of legitimate political influence 
Slavery was far inferior to other interests and 
Other sections. 

I believed, therefore, in common with a 
powerful and intelligent portion of the 
'American people, that if the people themselves 
desired to retain control of their Government— if 
they desired that this nation should continue to 
be a Republic governed by the constitutional 
majority of the people— it was absolutely neces- 
sary to resist, by all just and constitu- 
tional modes of political action, these ambitious 
efforts of the oligarchy which rested on the own- 
ership of slaves to obtain control of it, and to 
convert it into something very different in its na- 
ture and objects from what it was designed to be 
by those who won its independence and ordained 
jts Constitution. [Applause.] I cooperated, there- 
fore, very early and very zealously, with those 
who formed and organized the Republican party. 
That party came into existence for the purpose of 
checking and defeating this attempt of Slavery to 
consolidate and perpetuate its control over the 
general Government. Its active efforts have 
been devoted to that object and to that alone, and 
it has fulfilled its mission. [Applause.] Mainly, 
if not exclusively, through the action of that party 
— action provoked and rendered necessary by the 
ambition of Slavery itself — the progress of Slavery 
toward domination in this Republic has been ended 
forever. [Applause] The election of a Republican 
.president in 1860, was important in all its aspects 
and relations ; but its paramount and supreme 
importance consisted in the demonstration it af- 
forded, that the people of the United States had 
taken the Government into their own hands, and 
that the slavehoiding aristocracy could hold it no 
longer. The demonstration of that fact provoked 
Slavery to a new and a final effort. It appealed 
from the ballot-box, where a President had 
been constitutionally elected, to the battle-field 
for the purpose of overthrowing his Government ; 
and for two years and a half now the Government 
pf the United States has been engaged in defend- 
ing itself against this attempt. For two years 
and a half the energies of the people have been 
expended in a war far the preservation of the Na- 
tional existence The war on the part of the 
United States is purely a war of defence ; of de- 
fence against causeless and unprovoked aggres- 
sion ; of defence against an unholy attempt to 
overthrow the Democratic Republic of the United 
States; and that is certainly a cause worthy the 
Utmost efforts and the last sacrifices of the 
bravest and the noblest people that ever lived on 
the face of the earth. [Great applause.] It is 
unnecessary for me to rehearse the history of this 
rebellion, its origin and cause, its progress or its 
prospects. It has been carried on by those en- 
gaged in it with a degree of vigor and obstinacy— 



•T? 



I do not hesitate to add with a degree of courage 
and of self-sacrifice — which would have 
conferred lasting honor on men fighting 
in a better cause. The resources of 
the rebels, in men, in money and in all the mate- 
rials of war, have proved to be far greater than 
we had expected to find them, and the war they 
have wagen has oeen -ar more protracted, more 
destructive and more terrible than we supposed 
at the outset it could possibly prove. But the 
courage, the endurance and the patriotism of the 
American people have proved equal to the emer- 
gency. [Applause.] The Government for two 
years and a half has conducted this war with a 
degree of sagacity and a wise statesmanship to 
which impartial history will do justice, however 
partisan prejudice may obscure or ignore it ; and 
the people of the United States have shown a 
steady patriotism, a high-toned devotion to the 
public good and an aptitude for military affairs 
unexampled in the history of nations. [Applause.] 

We have reached a new stage in this great con- 
troversy. At the outset the people, on this as on 
every other important question, were more or less 
divided. There was a party in the North disposed 
to deny the right of the Government to fight for 
its own existence. Others denied the possibility 
of subduing the rebellion, while they conceded 
that it ought to be done. And some even espoused 
openly the cause of the rebels, as founded in jus- 
tice and in right. Differences have also grown 
up during the progress of the war as to the proper 
mode of carrying it on, as to the fitness of particu 
lar men for special places, the policy or impolicy 
of specific action on the part of the Government, 
and indeed on all the details of the great transac- 
tion. But as we have seen more and more clearly 
the purpose and scope of the rebellion, — as its 
object and the results of its success have become 
more and more apparent, the people have made 
up their minds, with substantial unanimity, that 
whatever may be necessary shall be done to 
crush the rebellion and restore the authority of 
the Constitution of the United States. [Ap- 
plause.] 

There are two or three points which it seems 
to me are sufficiently established in the public 
mind to be taken for granted in this discussion : 

1. The jirst is that the rebellion must be 
quelled, — that the Union must be restored, — that 
the supremacy of the Constitution must be re- 
established over every foot of American soil. 
[Loud applause.] This is not a mere impulse of 
the vanity of the American people, as some foreign 
critics would fain believe ; it is the deep and set- 
tled conviction of the American heart that unless 
this is done, the Republic of the United States is 
hopelessly destroyed, the peace, order and free- 
dom of our people give place to turmoil, anarchy 
and 'confusion, and the last hope of (rational 
civil liberty, resting on the right of self-govern- 
ment, perishes from off the face of the earth. 



[Applause.] Ou: fathers intended this Govern- 
ment to last forever and to be forever a free Gov- 
ernment. They designed that it should secure to 
its citizens the full and complete enjoyment of 
civil liberty, and at the same time be powerful 
enough to maintain its position and its principles, 
if either should be assailed by any or by all of the 
nations of the earth. And for these two objects 
full provision was clearly and distinctly made in 
theConstitution which they ordained. The first was 
secured by retaining for each of the several States 
complete control of its own local affairs. The 
second was secured by creating a common Gov- 
ernment for them all, which, within certain dis- 
tinct and specified limits, embracing all great ob- 
jects of common interest and concern, should be 
absolutely and entirely sovereign, — which should 
wield the force of the people, have authority over 
the whole, and represent the will and the purpose 
of the whole in all that involved the welfare of 
the whole ; and with this sovereignty, thus defin- 
ed and restricted, the States were expressly for- 
bidden to interfere. The rebellion now In pro- 
gress aims to overthrow this sovereignty 
of the nation, and to reclaim it for the several 
States. It aims, therefore, to destroy the nation 
itself— to wrest from it the national power and 
authority which it wields under the Constitution, 
and thus to destroy forever all our power and 
consideration among the nations of the earth. 
The people have determined that this must not, 
shall not be done. As the recent elections show, 
they have determined to sustain the Government 
— to crush the rebellion — to save the Union and 
restore the authority of the American Consti- 
tion. [Applause.] That point I consider settled. 
2. There is a second point which seems to me 
equally clear and equally settled in the public 
mind, this namely,— that if the rebellion is to be 
quelled, it must be done by force of arms. [Loud 
applause.] Every thing that has occurred since 
the war began proves that this is so. We must 
surrender to the rebels or they must surrender to 
, us. All talk and all thought of compromise,— of 
conciliation, of making any terms with the rebel 
authorities short of conceding what they claim, 
independence, is seen and felt to be utterly idle 
and hopeless. The language of all their pjblic 
men proves it. The action of their leaders, civil 
and military, proves it. Everything that is said, 
and everything that is done, combine to confirm 
the declaration of the official organ of the Confed- 
eracy, the Richmond Enquirer, that "it is all or 
nothing ; this Confederacy or the Yankee nation, 
one or other, goes down, down to perdition : — one 
or the other must forfeit its national existence and 
lie at the mercy of its mortal enemy." This is 
the alternative. Whether we wish it or not we 
must accept it. And the American people have 
declared their willingness to accept it — their 
readiness to meet the issue and to decide, by 



force of arms in the field of battle, which of the 
two it shall be— our Government or the rebel 
Government that is to go " down, down to perdi- 
tion." [Applause.] 

3. A third point which all concede to be equally 
clear is that this force by which alone the rebel- 
lion can be put down must be wielded solely and 
exclusively by the Government of the United 
States — by the Administration which has for the 
time being the sole and exclusive guidance of our 
national affairs. [Applause.] It is a national con- 
test, and it must therefore be waged by national 
authority. No State can carry on this war — each 
State is expressly forbidden by the Constitution 
to make war at all. No confederation of States 
can do it — the States are expressly forbidden by 
the Constitution to enter into any confederation 
for any purpose whatever. No party can do it — 
no Convention or assemblage of men can do it. 
There is but one authority upon American soil 
that can rightfully or actually carry on this war 
and that is the Government of the United States 
no matter what man may be at the head of it, nor 
what political party may, for the time being, have 
charge of its affairs. [Applause.] 

Now, these three points being conceded, does it 
not follow, with equal clearness and certainty, 
that the Government must be sustained by the 
people in carrying on this war, if the people 
desire the rebellion to be put down ? No matter 
whether you approve all the acts of the Adminis • 
tration or not : no matter whether you helped 
bring it into power or not: no matter whether 
you think the members of it the best men for their 
places or not : for the time being they constitute 
the Government ; they represent its authority and 
wield its force ; and if you want this thing done 
you must aid them in their attempts to do it. 
[Applause.] We must overlook their mistakes. 
[Applause.] We must deal leniently with their 
errors. We must make large and liberal al- 
lowance for the extraordinary circumstances in 
which they are placed. And we must give them 
the cordial and earnest support which the mag- 
nitude of the cause and the welfare of the coun- 
try demand. And when, by so doine, we have 
reestablished the authority of the Government 
and restored the integrity and the peace of the 
Union, we can rectify any abuses which may have 
crept into the Government, and redress any wrong 
which the Administration may have committed. 
[Loud applause] 

Now it seems to me that this simple 
statement of the case is quite sufficient to 
decide the duty of every American citizen. If 
the rebellion must be put down,— if this can 
only be done by force of arms, — and if that force 
can be wielded only bv the Government of the 
United States, then it is clearly the duty of every 
true-hearted American so to speak, so to act and 
so to vote as to give the utmost possible support 



to the Government in its efforts so to wield that 
force as to crush the rebellion and restore the su- 
premacy of the Constitution. [Applause.] 

This, it seems to me, is all the affirmative ar- 
gument that need be made upon this subject. 
How is it met by those who refuse thus to sup- 
port the Government in its prosecution of the 
war? 

The Government, it is alleged, is not carrying 
on the war for the purpose of putting down the 
rebellion at the Souih : it is doing it for the pur- 
pose of putting down free institutions at the 
North. It is doing it not to save the Union, but 
to abolish Slavery. It makes rebellion the pre- 
text, and the armies of the Union the weapon, 
for overthrowing the -Constitution and for estab- 
lishing a military despotism upon its ruins. If I 
believed this to be true, I could not concur with 
those who assert it, in pretending to be for the 
prosecution of the war. Gov. Seymour, ot New- 
York, is one of those who profess to believe it — 
yet he has " dedicated" himself in words, repeat- 
edly, to a vigorous prosecution of the war. A vig- 
orous prosecution of a war to overthrow the 
Constitution and put down free institutions in the 
Northern States ! Either these men are insin- 
cere in their professed belief, and are trying to 
mislead the public judgment by assertions which 
they do not believe themselves, or else their 
zeal for liberty is a hollow sham. If I believed 
that the free institutions of this country were in 
greater danger from the action of the Government 
than from the rebellion, I would take arms 
against the Government. I would fight the worst 
foe first. But Ido not believe any such thing, and 
I find it difficult to feel any great respect for the 
judgments of those who do, and still more diffi- 
cult to feel any respect at all for the honesty of 
those who assert it without believrhg it. Even if 
the Administration had transcended its powers, 
and committed serious wrongs in the prosecution 
of thewar, I should be very slow in coming to the 
conclusion that it had done so with any purpose 
of subverting the liberties of the American people. 
There is no man living whom I would not quite as 
soon suspect of such a design as the present 
Executive of the United States. [Applause.] No 
man more upright — no man more patriotic, no 
man more thoroughly and entirely devoted to the 
great principles of American liberty as embodied 
in the Constitution of the United States, or less 
likely to do anything to their detriment, ever 
tilled that exalted station than Abraham Lin- 
coln. [Loud applause.] But I do not believe 
the conduct of the Administration is obnoxious 
to the censures that have been passed upon it. 
[Applause.] I do not believe that it has trans- 
cended its just constitutional authority. [Ap- 
plause.] I do not believe that it has changed in 
the slightest degree the objects and purposes for 
which the war is waged— or that it has done 



anything in any respect for which full warrant 
may not be found in the provisions of the Consti- 
tution, or which cannot be fully justified by the 
emergencies of the case and the absolute necessi- 
ties of the nation. [Loud applause.] And if you 
will permit me to trespass somewhat on your 
patience I will endeavor to vindicate this opinion. 

THE MATTER OF ARBITRARY ARRESTS. 

Foremost in this indictment of the Administra- 
tion stands the charge that by its arbitrary ar- 
rests, without due process of law, on suspicion of 
intent to commit crime instead of on charges of 
crime already committed, and by its \suspension 
of the writ of habeas corpus, which was intended 
to forbid and nullify all such arrests, the Govern- 
ment has actually abrogated the main guarantee 
of personal liberty provided by the Constitution, 
and subjected the rights, and the liberties of every 
citizen to the caprice of arbitrary power. Now 
it is quite true that one of the dearest and most 
sacred of the rights of every American citizen is 
this immunity from arbitrary arrest. The Con- 
stitution guarantees it, and without that guaran- 
tee the Constitution never could, and never 
should, have been adopted. And it is the very 
last right which any American should surrender. 
Nothing can be more dangerous to any society, 
nothing more destructive to the personal freedom 
of its individual members, than the power of ar- 
rest and imprisonment on mere suspicion, with- 
out being compelled to submit to public judicial 
scrutiny the grounds on which such arrests are 
made. The ordinary rule of all free society — 
of our free society certainly — is, that 
no man can be arrested, arraigned 
or imprisoned except for the committal of some 
act which becomes a crime because it is in viola- 
tion of some specific law. And whenever any 
man is arrested he has a right, on his own de- 
mand, to be taken before a Court that he may 
learn what act he is charged with having done» 
what law it violates and on what evidence he is 
supposed to have done it. That is the privilege 
of the writ of habeas corpus; and the Constitu- 
tion provides that "it shall not be suspended" 
except in a certain specified contingency. That 
exception was deemed necessary because the 
contingency was one likely to arise in the history 
of every nation. 

Under ordinary circumstances the peace 
and security of society are sufficiently se- 
cured by the punishment of actual crimi- 
nals for actual crimes. But emergencies 
may occur in which it is quite as important for 
the public safety to prevent intended crimes, and 
even to prevent intended acts which are not 
crimes because they do not violate any specific 
law, as to punish crimes which have actually 
been committed. Suppose, for example, that in a 
case of invasion some citizen is suspected of in- 



ending to hang up signal lights to guide an en- 
emy's vessels into one of our ports ;— or that, in 
case of a rebellion, some citizen is believed to 
be on the point of sending arms, munitions of 
war or information to the insurgents ; — who can 
doubt that it is far more important for the 
public safety to prevent these intended acts, than it 
s to punish the men who do them after they have 
aeen committed ? In the latter case the public 
will have sustained all the injury which the acts 
an inflict. The invader will have been guided 
into port. The rebel will have been furnished 
.vith weapons for the intended blow against his 
:ountry, or with information where to strike. 
4.nd the punishment of the criminal will not undo 
he disastrous public consequences of his crime. 
3ut if in such cases the writ of habeas corpus 
s in full force and validity, the arrest of these 
.Tien by due process of law must be an empty 
Form. They have committed no crime — they 
have done no act in violation of any law, and, as 
i matter of course, they are at once released and 
left free to consummate their meditated and in- 
tended treason. Now the framers of the Consti- 
tution knew very well that such cases were 
likely to arise, because they had arisen in the 
history of every nation ; and they deemed it 
wise, therefore, to make provision for them. They 
did it by declaring that " the privilege of the 
writ of habeas corpus should not be suspended, 
unless when, in cases of invasion or rebellion, 
the public safety may require it." Two condi- 
tions, therefore, must concur to authorize a sus- 
pension of the privilege of this writ : 1. There 
must be at the time a case of invasion or rebel- 
lion, and 2. The public safety must require it. 

So far our way is clear enough. The next 
question that arises is, what authority shall de- 
termine ivhen these two conditions exist ? Clear- 
ly it must be the authority authorized to make 
the suspension,— the Government itself. It must 
be either the President or Congress, or both. If 
it is an executive act, the President may perform 
it. If it is a legislative act, it requires the action 
of Congress, with the concurrence of the Pres- 
ident. But as it is an act demanded to meet an 
emergency, the nature and imperativeness of the 
emergency itself must have great weight in de- 
termining its character. When our rebel- 
lion broke out, for instance, the rebels 
had every advantage. They had laid their 
plans and prepared their materials. Their 
agents had been active in the Cabinet, in 
every department of the Government, and in 
every section of the country. ihey had been 
largely supplied with arms from the Government 
arsenals. Their spies were active in every North- 
ern city. Their allies were vigorous and resolute 
in the Northern Press, in the halls of Congress, in 
the leadership of political parties, and in every 
place of authority and influence throughout the 



country. What was to be done? No laws had 
been enacted making the action of these men 
criminal. Must they be left at large? Congress 
was not in session. The President took the re- 
sponsibility of deciding that a case ot rebellion 
did exist, that the public safely required the ar- 
rest of these men on suspicion and their deten- 
tion for the purpose of preventing the consumma- 
tion of their intended crimes. And he, therefore, 
suspended in their cases the privilege of the writ 
of habeas corpus. Then the objection was taken 
by the opponents of the Administration, that 
the President had transcended his au- 
thority, and that Congress alone had the right to 
suspend that privilege. Well, Congress at its 
next session authorized its suspension bv a law 
which the President approved. Every require- 
ment of the Constitution has thus been fully met. 
The Government has exercised a power conferred 
upon it in the most explicit terms, and in the very 
emergency upon which its exercise is expressly 
authorized : — yet the clamor against it is just as 
loud as it was before. Does not this show con- 
clusively that the real objection of these men is 
not to the mode of suspending the privilege, but 
to its being suspended at all ? Does it not prove 
that their real wish is that the agents and spies, 
the aiders and abettors of the rebellion, should 
be Left perfectly free to prosecute their work here 
in the heart of the Northern States ? [Applause.] 
And is that a desire or a demand which can 
challenge the sympathies of any loyal man? 

Upon grounds of the Constitution, therefore, it 
seems to me the action of the Administration in 
this matter is susceptible of the clearest and 
most complete vindication. It may be said, it is 
true, that this action has been unnecessary — that 
the public safety did not require it — and that one 
of the constitutional conditions of the rightful 
suspension of the writ is, therefore, wanting. 
But the only tribunal clothed with authority 
to decide that point has decided it otherwise. 
They may have been mistaken, but they were 
acting in their own right. They may have com- 
mitted an error, but they have not violated the 
Constitution ; and the error, if it be one, was on 
the side of the public safety, in the interest of the 
country, and therefore to be judged with leniency. 

But if we may rely upon precedents in this mat- 
ter, either English or American, they will show, I 
think, that even this censure is unjust. Our 
Government now has a much clearer justification 
for its action than can be found in most of the 
other cases. Take the case of England 
during the Irish Rebellion of 1848. Compared 
with ours that rebellion was a very paltry affair, 
and found neither aid nor advocates in anv other 
part of the United Kingdom. Yet so great was 
the terror which it inspired, so serious in the 
eyes of the Government was the emergency 
which it created, that a bill passed both Houses 



of Parliament on two successive days — receiving 
in each a unanimous vote — authorizing the arrest 
of men in Ireland on mere suspicion, and depriv- 
ing them of the privilege of the writ of habeas 
corpus. Every leading member of both Houses sus- 
tained it, and Lord Brougham, who has since made 
himself conspicuous by his denunciations of the 
action of our Government, advocated its passage 
with an eloquence he has long since lost, and de- 
clared, with a just detestation of treason clothed 
in the robes of liberty, — " a friend of liberty I 
have lived and so shall I die ; nor do I care how 
soon that event may come, if I can be a friend of 
liberty only by being a friend of traitors also." 
Unhappily for our country, there are many able 
and influential men among us who assume to be 
friends of liberty only that they may, with greater 
effect and with larger service, be friends of 
traitors and of treason also. [Applause.] 

And now, without anv further reference to 
English history, let me cite lor you two prece- 
dents from our own. The first is drawn from the 
action of Gen. Washington and the Provincial 
Congress, in the early stages of our struggle for 
independence, toward the Loyalists or Tories of 
that day — "men who," in the language of Mr. 
George T. Curtis, in his able and most excel- 
lent History of the Constitution of the United 
States, "from a sense of duty, or from cupidity, 
or from some motive, good or bad, made their 
ejection to adhere to the public enemy, and were, 
therefore, rightfully classed among the enemies of 
the country by those whose business it was to 
conduct its affairs and fight its battles." " Gen. 
Washington," says the same authority, (who is 
now, let me add, one of the most vehement assail- 
ants of the Government on this very point,) "was at 
a very early period of opinion that the most de- 
cisive steps ought to be taken with 'these per- 
sons." And in November, 1775, he sent ap officer 
into New-Hampshire to seize every officer of the 
royal Government who had " given proofs of an 
unfriendly disposition to the American cause." 
In January of the next year, Gen. Washington 
gave Gen. Lee authority to march into Long 
Island, and disarm, and, if necessary, arrest all 
persons "whose conduct and declarations had 
rendered them justly suspected of designs un- 
friendly to the views of Congress." Suppose every 
man were to be arrested now whose con- 
duct and declarations had rendered him 
suspected of "designs unfriendly to the views of 
Congress /" In Que'ens County, on Long Island, 
a majority of the inhabitants had refused to elect 
delegates to the Provincial Convention, — and 
for this offence, and for this only, nineteen of 
them had been arrested, taken to Philadelphia 
and put in prison. And the Provincial Congress, 
then in session, at once passed resolutions de- 
claring that " those who refuse to defend their 
country should be excluded from its protection 



and prevented from doing it an injury ;" — declar- 
ing all the men in Queens County who voted 
against electing delegates to be out of the protec- 
tion of the Government, and liable to arrest and 
imprisonment for three months if found outside 
their county, — and also declaring that " any law- 
yer or attorney who should commence, prosecute 
or defend any action at law, for any inhabitant of 
Queens County who voted against sending: depu- 
ties to the Convention, should be treated as an 
enemy to the American cause." [Applause.] This 
was the action of Gen. Washington — never con- 
sidered in his day especially hostile to public 
liberty — in a case infinitely less imperative than 
those which have required the action of our pres- 
ent Government. His arrests were quite as'arbi- 
trary as any which President Lincoln has made, 
and the emergency which required them was far 
less pressing. And the Provincial Congress, the 
bulwark and champion of liberty all through the 
war of independence, indorsed his acts, and laid 
down the broadest principles of public action upon 
the subject. This is one precedent from our own 
history. 

You will find another in the case of our last 
war (the last thus far,) with Great Britain. Gen. 
Jackson, who, in his day passed for an orthodox 
Democrat, though I have no idea he would do so 
now, [laughter and applause,] was in command 
of the City of New-Orleans when news arrived 
that peace had been concluded. As no official 
report to this effect had reached him, he still 
maintained martial law in the city. This gave 
rise to warm censures in the Louisiana 
Courier, a newspaper edited by Mr. Lou- 
allier, who denounced his action as un- 
just and tyrannical. Gen. Jackson did not 
stop to argue the question, but arrested Mr. 
Louallier and put him in prison. [Laugh- 
ter] Mr. Louallier applied, through a 
lawyer named Morell, to a Judge named 
Hall, for the privilege of the writ of habeas cor- 
pus. Judge Hall issued the writ, but instead of 
obeying it, Gen. Jackson arrested lawyer Morell 
and Judge Hall, and put them in prison also. 
[Laughter.] Another editor, by the name of Hol- 
lander, incidentally spoke of this as a "dirty 
trick," whereupon Gen. Jackson arrested Mr. 
Hollander, and put him in prison with the other 
three. [Renewed laughter and applause.] That 
was then the Democratic method, according to 
Gen. Jackson, of dealing with enemies of their 
country — when, in cases of invasion, the public 
safety required it. Three days afterward, official 
news of the conclusion of peace arrived, and the 
four pi isoners were released. Judge Hall sum- 
moned Gen. Jackson into Court, and fined him a 
thousand dollars for his arbitrary arrest. Gen. 
Jackson paid it, and was carried, in the triumph 
of a popular whirlwind, to his lodgings. Thirty 
years afterward a bill was introduced and passed 



in Congress, refunding to Gen. Jackson the thou- 
sand dollars he had paid as the penalty for his 
patriotic conduct, — and it received the support of 
the great body, if not of every member, of the 
Democratic party in both Houses of Congress — 
Stephen A. Douglas, whom some of you may 
remember as a Democrat, taking the lead. [Ap- 
plause.] It was then considered Democratic to 
sustain the country in time of war, — and it was 
not considered either Democratic or patriotic to 
go against it. How it is now-a-days, I leave those 
who still call themselves Democrats to judge. 
[Applause.] 

Now, here are two precedents from our own 
history, showing under what circumstances and 
on what grounds arbitrary arrests have been made 
hitherto. Let me cite to you now the most con- 
spicuous of the instances of such arrests in the 
present war, and see whether President Lincoln 
has gone further in this direction than did Gen. 
Washington and Gen. Jackson. A mem- 
ber of Congress from Ohio — then named Yal- 
landigham, you may have heard of him, 
(what his name is since the late election I scarce- 
ly know, as I seldom hear his friends pronounce 
it,) [laughter,] went back to his State, boasting, 
and with truth, that he had never given a vote 
nor a dollar to aid the war against the rebellion, 
— and there commenced a popular agitation 
against the Government. He made speeches, the 
direct purpose and tendency of which was to 
prevent enlistments, promote desertions, ex- 
cite hostility to the Government, and to cripple it 
in its prosecution of the war. He did all this in 
the heart of the State of Ohio. Now Ohio hap- 
pened to be a military department under com- 
mand of Gen. Btjrnside, [applause,] who had 
declared his purpose to sustain the Government, 
and to arrest any man who should resist it. 
Upon this principle he arrested Mr. Vallandig- 
ham and put him in prison. Mr. Vallandigham 
applied to Judge Leavitt, a Democratic Judge, 
through Senator Pugh, a Democratic lawyer, for 
the benefit of the writ of habeas corpus. The 
privilege of that writ had not then been suspended 
in the State of Ohio. Judge Leavitt heard the 
case with the utmost patience — how much it re- 
quired you may infer from the fact that he listened 
to Senator PuGn for over two hours. He was a 
Democrat, but not of the modern school, as he 
had been appointed to office by Gen. Jackson, 
and inherited some of his notions of patriotism 
and public duty. And he decided that the public 
safety, in his judgment, required the ar- 
rest and imprisonment of Mr. Vallandig- 
ham, and that he should not, therefore, is- 
sue the writ. [Applause.] Mr. Vallan- 
digham was tried by a military commission, con- 
victed and sentenced to impiisonment for a term 
of years ; but President Lincoln, with his usual 
clemency, commuted his sentence to banishment 



among his Southern friends. [Laughter.] Mi' 
Vallandigham's friends took an appeal from the 
decision of the Government authorities in thi6 mat- 
ter, to the people of Ohio, Pennsylvania, New- 
York and other States. The case has been ably and 
zealously argued in them all, and unless 
we have been sadly misinformed, every State in 
which an election has been held has affirmed the 
justice of the original verdict, and prolonged 
absence of Mr. Vallandigham from the loyal 
State of which he was not elected Governor ! 
[Applause.] 

I think now I have said enough on the subject 
of arbitrary arrests. I have endeavored to show 
that the action of the Government has not been irl 
violation of the Constitution, and that it is fully 
justified by historical precedent. True it ma> 
prive individuals for a time of their ordinary 
rights and privileges, but this is one of the sacri- 
fices which war requires. We must not expect 
all the blessings and securities of peace in 
a time of war. War always demands sa* 
crifices ot money, of time, of comfort, of 
life itself: why should we expect to hold all civil 
rights untouched, while everything else we have 
is subject to its remorseless and destructive 
tread ? That man must be a poor patriot who, 
when his country is in danger, will not submit to 
a temporary surrender of some of his rights foi 
its salvation. Thousands and hundreds of thou- 
sands of our fellow-citizens have waived all 
their civil rights, and are exposing their Lives 
on the field of battle in defence of that Constitu 
tion which affords the only basis and guarantee 
of our civil liberties : are we not equal to the in- 
finitely smaller sacrifice required at our hands? 
The sole object of this temporary surrender of our 
priTileges and immunities, moreover, U to secure 
them permanently to ourselves and our posterity 
If the Constitution perishes, all these immunities 
perish with it. If that is saved, they are guar- 
anteed to us forever. 

But the Government, it is said, is now in t ie - 
hands of the army, and that army is used, and 
will be used to deprive us of our freedom, am? 
sustain the despotism established in its stead 
Do those who urge this reflect that the army is 
simply the people, with arms in their hands— that 
they are drawn from the bosom of our society 
and will soon return to it again, having precisely 
the same rights to be preserved, the same inter- 
ests to be promoted as all the rest of us? Are 
they likely to aid in the destruction of their own 
liberties,— the overthrow of their own hopes,- 
merely to gratify the ambition of the President 
of the United States? Besides, who that knows- 
Abraham Lincoln, or has read anything of his 
character and history, believes for one mome n 
that he ever cherished a thought of permanently 
abridging in the slightest degree, or of in any 
way impairing the rights and liberties of the 



American people ? [Loud applause and three 
cheers for President Lincoln.] Those cheers 
are well deserved. No man has ever commended 
himself by his words and his acts more steadily 
or more thoroughly to the confidence of the 
country he is seeking to serve and to save than 
he, [Applause.] 

THE CHARGE THAT THE WAR IS WAGED NOT FOR 
THE UNION BUT FOR THE ABOLITION OF 
SLAVERY. 

I come now to another charge against the Ad- 
ministration brought by its opponents as a reason 
for not sustaining it in the prosecution of the 
war. It is alleged that the object of the war has 
been changed — that it is no longer carried on to 
restore the Union and maintain the authority of 
the Constitution, but to emancipate the slaves — 
that it is not now a war for the preservation of 
the Union but a war for the.^ abolition of Slavery. 
If I believed ihat allegation to be true, I should 
(sympathize with those who on the strength of it 
refuse to sustain the Administration. I do not 
believe the Government has any right to wage war 
against the South for the abolition of Slavery ; 
and even if it had the right I should doubt the 
wisdom of its exercise. But I do not believe the 
assertion. The object of the war, in my judgment, 
i$ now precisely what it was when the war com- 
menced. The purpose of the Government in car- 
rying it on — the sole object which the Govern- 
ment seeks to accomplish by its means, because 
it cannot accomplish it by any other, is in my 
opinion now, as it has been from the beginning, 
the salvation of the Union, and not the ab- 
olition of Slavery. And this, I think, can 
be made perfectly clear to any candid man. 

Those who insist that the object of the war has 
been changed are in the habit of sustaining that 
assertion by quoting a great variety of individual 
opinions. They quote this orator and that Editor, 
now a Senator, and next a member of Congress, 
to prove that the abolition of Slavery is the great 
end for which the war is carried on. Now one 
would naturally suppose that the proper and the 
only conclusive witness as to the object of the 
War was the recognized authority by which the 
war is carried on. It is for the Government of 
the United States, and for it alone, to decide and 
dsclare what end it seeks, what purpose it aims 
to accomplish by the prosecution of the war. 
Now we have from both departments of the Gov- 
ernment, the Executive and the Legislature, the 
most explicit declarations on this very point. At 
the very commencement of the war Congress 
passed a resolution declaring that 

H This war is not waged in any spirit of oppression, 
0r for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, or of 
overthrowing or interfering with the rights or estab- 
lished institutions of the Southern States, — but to de- 
fend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution 
.-.i:i> to preserve the Union with all the dignity, equality 
StM rights of the several States unimpaired,— and that 



as soon as these objects are accomplished the war ought 
to cease." 

This was the clear statement of the object and 
purpose of the war made by Congress at its com- 
mencement : and nothing has since been said or 
done by that department of the Government 
to indicate that this object has been changed. 
The President has been equally consist- 
ent and even more explicit in proclaiming the 
same thing. In his Inaugural Address, — in every 
message to Congress, — in his correspondence 
through the State Department with foreign Pow- 
ers, in his letters to individuals and conventions, 
in all he has written, said or done since the war 
began, he has declared its object and purpose to 
be to save the Union, — precisely that and nothing 
more. Without going any further back let me 
read to you from his lettei of Aug. 22, 1862, to 
Mr. Greeley, one or two sentences, which are so 
clear and so precise in terms that their meaning 
cannot be mistaken. He says 

'•As to the policy I 'seem to be pursuing,' as you 
say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt. J 
xvould save the Union. I would save it in the shortest 
way under the Constitution.. 

If there be those who would not save the Union 
unless they could at the same time save Slavery, I 
do not agree with them. 

If there be those who would not save the Union 
unless they could at the same time destroy Slavery, 1 
do not agree with them. 

My paramount objeot is to save the Union, and not 
cither to save or destroy Slavery. 

If I could save the Union without freeing any 
slave, I would do it— if I could save it by free- 
ing all the slaves, I would doit — and if I could do 
it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would 
also do that. 

What I do about Slavery and the colored race, I do 
because 1 believe it kelps to save this Union, and what 
I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would 
help to save the Union. 

I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am 
doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever 
I believe doing more will help the cause." 

Can anything be more precise, more definite or 
more conclusive than this ? Does it not show 
beyond the shadow of a doubt that President 
Lincoln's object and purpose in carrying on this 
war is, not to abolish Slavery, but to save the 
Union ? 

A Voice — But we in Delaware want Slavery 
abolished. 

Mr. Raymond — All right, my friend. I am glad 
to hear it. I trust you will get it abolished. No 
greater benefit, in my judgment, could possibly 
be conferred on tlie State of Delaware than the 
abolition of Slavery. But what I want you to 
understand is that you must abolish it yourselves 
and not ask or expect the General Government 
to do it for you. [Applause, and cries of "That's 
it," " We'll do it," Ac.] It is lor your interest that 
it should be done, and it is your right and your 
duty to do it. The General Government has no 
right to do it. Its duties and its sovereignty re- 
late solely to interests which are national in 
their character, as Slavery most certainly is 
not. And. while I rejoice most heartily at the 



new era which is dawning upon lis, when the 
people of the Slave States can and will take up 
for themselves this great question of Sla- 
very, and act upon it as their own judg- 
ments and consciences may dictate, — and while I 
most earnestly and devoutly trust that not only 
Delaware and Maryland, and Missouri and Ten- 
nessee, but every other Slave State, will clear 
itself from the stain and the blight of Slavery, 
just as soon as the rebel armies shall be driven 
from its soil, and the people shall be thus eman- 
cipated in their political action from the tyranny 
which has oppressed them so long, I desire it to 
be understood, most clearly and distinctly, that 
they must carry out this great reform themselves, 
and not look to the General Government to do it 
for them. [Loud applause.] That this grand and 
glorious consummation will be reached, I have 
not the slightest doubt. That the day will speedily 
come when there will not be a slave on American 
soil, — when the law of freedom shall be the law 
of every State, as it is the law for the whole 
Union, and when the pervading spirit of all out- 
laws, local as well as National, shall be 
the spirit of liberty, and of equal rights 
for every human being, high or low, rich or poor, 
strong or weak, white or black, I believe with full 
and assured faith, and 1 thank God that its 
glorious dawning streaks the rejoicing heavens 
even now. [Loud applause.] But I want the 
people of the Slave States to work out for them- 
selves this great salvation. [Applause.] I want 
them to catch the spirit of this great reform, — 
to feel that it is their work, their duty, their des- 
tiny to redeem themselves, — and that it is not 
something to be imposed upon them by foreign 
or superior power. [Applause.] And my spe- 
cial pornt now is to show you that this war,in 
which the whole nation is now engaged, — which 
is taxing so severely the energies, the resources, 
the wisdom and the courage of the whole na- 
ton. — is carried on, not for any local or limited 
object, — not for any State or for any sectional pur- 
pose, but solely and exclusively to save the Union 
and restore the supremacy of the Constitution over 
every foot of the Union's soil. [Loud applause.] 
And now permit me to say, in a single word and 
by way of apology for dwelling so long upon 
points that may seem too clear for argument to 
the most of those who hear me, that in my po- 
litical addresses I always speak on the assump- 
tion that every one of my audience is a political 
opponent and that my business is so to present 
my case as to convert him, by fair argument 
and just appeal, to my view of it. I have no ob- 
ject and no interest in addressing those who al- 
ready agree with me. I talk not to please the 
righteous, but to call political sinners to repent- 
ance. [Laughter and applause.] I beg those po- 
litical sinners, therefore, who may hear me now, 
(and I trust there are a good many of them here,) to 



understand that the object of this National war is 
now precisely what it was at the beginning — the 
salvation of the Union and not the abolition 
of i Slavery. It is that fact which gives 
it so strong a hold on the conscience of 
the country. It is the conviction of that fact 
which has just led the people of the whole coun- 
try, in the elections which have just been held, to 
pledge their hearty support to the Government in 
its prosecution. The destruction of Slavery may, 
and in all human probability will, be accomplished 
in the progress of the war and through its agency. 
If the war continues, if the rebels persist in their 
rebellion, and compel the National Government 
to send its armies into all the Slave States, and 
thus bring the whole territorial area of the rebel- 
lion under the practical workings of the Emanci- 
pation Proclamation, that great edict will take 
direct effect as a war measure upon every foot of 
the rebel territory, and free every slave on Ameri- 
can soil. [Loud applause.] Already the armies 
of the Union, in waging war against the rebellion, 
have made the question of Abolition a practical 
question of local politics — of home concern — in 
Missouri, in Tennessee, in Maryland and in Dela- 
ware, each one of which States will, beyond all 
doubt, sweep Slavery from their statute-books 
within a year. This sets free more than half a 
million slaves. [Applause.] Our armies, moreover, 
in the unquestioned and unquestionable exercise 
of the rights of war now dominate the institution 
of Slavery in Louisiana, in Arkansas, in Missis- 
sippi, and in parts of North Carolina and Florida 
— which have at least a million more. Slavery 
thus holds a position of comparative security only 
in Texas, Alabama, Georgia, and parts of Florida, 
the Carolinas and Virginia ; and our armies now 
hover on the borders of each of those States, and, 
if Providence prospers our arms, will speedily 
march into the very heart of the only region 
where Slavery finds a tottering and precarious 
foothold. [Applause.] And if Slavery thus falls, 
if it is thus crushed under the blows of the war 
which it began, — who will bewail its fate or shed 
tears on the felon grave which it dug for the 
Union, but in which it will find for itself an in- 
glorious but undisturbed repose? [Applause.] 

Meantime, let it be distinctly understood that 
the war is waged, not for the accomplishment of 
this result, but to save the Union ; and when 
that object shall have been accomplished the 
war will stop. We have President Lincoln's 
declaration to that effect in. the passage I have al- 
ready quoted from his letter. You have it in the 
resolution passed by Congress at the very outset 
of the war. You have it in the President's letter 
to the Springfield Convention. You have it in re- 
peated dispatches sent by our Government to our 
Ministers abroad. All these render perfectly pre- 
posterous the plea of those who refuse to sup- 
port the Government because the war is no longer 



10 



waged to save the Union, but to free the negroes 
President Lincoln, in his Springfield letter, gives 
a clear and perfectly conclusive reply to all such 
pretences. "You say," he tells them, "you will 
not fight to save the negroes ; fight you then ex- 
clusively to save the Union ; whenever you shall 
have conquered all resistance to the Union, if I 
shall urge you to continue fighting, it will be an 
apt time then tor you to declare you will not fight 
to free negroes." But these men insist on stop- 
ping the war before the Union is saved, for fear it 
will not stop then. [Laughter.] The Union is 
not yet saved. The armies of the rebels still hold 
the field. Until they are conquered we can have 
no hope of peace that shall bring with it a restored 
Union and a reestablished Constitution. Let us 
all unite to prosecute the war until that result is 
reached, and then we shall all unite to demand 
its close. [Applause.] 

THE QUESTION OF RECONSTRUCTION. 

But very many persons are checked in their 
inclination to support the war by distrust as to 
its practical result. Even in case of victory, they 
say, How do you propose to restore the Union ? 
Suppose the rebellion crushed, how will you bring 
back the people of the Southern States to their 
allegiance ? How do you propose to govern their 
territory,— to put their State Governments again 
in motion, and reconstruct the Union? These 
doubts and questionings disturb the judgments 
and affect the action of many very sincere and 
patriotic men,— and this effect has been increased 
by the heated and untimely discussions of the sub- 
ject in which many prominent public men have 
seen fit to engage. The question of reconstruc- 
tion cannot become a practical question until the 
rebellion is conquered. Until then we have noth- 
ing to reconstruct. I cannot help thinking, there- 
fore, that it would have been wiser in these gen- 
tlemen, and quite as patriotic, to lend all their 
energies to the duty that lies most immedi- 
ately and most distinctly before them, the 
vigorous prosecution of the war. They 
would have served the country auite as well if 
they had appealed to those great principles, those 
high aims, those noble and inspiring sentiments 
of love of country, love of Union and love of the 
Constitution which all the people share in com- 
mon, and thus sought to enlist them all in this 
great work of common duty and of common 
glory— instead of springing technical discussions 
on abstract points sure to divide public sentiment, 
and, therefore, sure to check and cripple that 
common effort which the salvation of the country 
requires. But as the discussion has been started 
it will be pursued. And all we have to do is to 
keep it as clear from passion and prejudice as 
possible.to prevent it from degenerating into an ex- 
asperating party wrangle, and to let common 



sense have as fair play and as much influence as 
can be expected lor it in heated political debates. 
It has been urged, with ability and force, in 
some quarters that the rebel States, by seceding 
from the Union, have committed suicide,— that 
their existence as States can no longer be recog- 
nized by the General Government, which, never- 
theless, has jurisdiction of their soil, and can cre- 
ate upon it new local, territorial governments, in 
its own discretion :— and that these governments 
thus created can become States only by permis- 
sion of Congress, and enter the Union only on 
such conditions as Congress may prescribe. This 
theory has zealous advocates, and will have a 
party to support it in Congress and the country— 
a party held together not so much by any intel- 
lectual conviction of the soundness of the theory 
itself, as by the determination to use it as a 
basis for insisting that no rebel State shall 
come back into the Union except on 
condition of its abolishing Slavery in its 
State Constitution. The end aimed at may be 
desirable. I think it is,— that is, I think it highly 
important, to their own welfare and for the inter- 
est of the whole country, that the States of the 
Union should all be free, and that Slavery, which 
has been the cause of this rebellion, should never 
have power to foment another. But no wise man 
will permit his wishes on one point to control his 
actions on all. Still less will he adopt an elabo- 
rate theory of constitutional law, in a matter af- 
fecting the permanent welfare of the nation, and 
deciding for all time to come the character of 
our institutions, for the sake of accomplishing 
any one purpose, even if that be so important a 
purpose as the abolition of Slavery. 

For my own part I do not find any support lor 
this theory in the Constitution, or in what must be 
hereafter as it has been heretofore the con- 
stitutional relation of the several States to 
the American Union. It must be borne in mind 
that the Constitution has almost nothing to 
do with States as such. It imposes no affirmative 
obligation upon them. It does not de- 
pend upon them for the execution of its 
laws. It deals directly and exclusively with in. 
dividuals. It makes a law, and it requires every 
individual within the scope of its authority to 
obey that law. That law is the supreme law of 
the land, "anything in the constitution or laws 
of anv State to the contrary notwithstanding." It 
is this feature, which, more than any other, dis- 
tinguishes the Constitution from the old Articles 
of Confederation. Under them the Congress made 
laws for Stales to execute. It called on the 
States for money, for men, for support of all 
kinds,— and the States could give or refuse— could 
execute or annul the laws of Congress at their 
sovereign pleasure. This was the weakness 
of that Government. It was this feature which 
made it necessary to " form a more perfect 



11 



Union," and that was done by ordaining the 
present Constitution, which directs its laws to 
every individual citizen, and requires his obe- 
dience, no matter in what State he lives or what 
that State may say about it. It recognizes the 
States in this connection, as in every other, only 
to forbid their interference with its sovereignty 
within the defined limits of its own jurisdiction. 
When a State, therefore, comes into the Union, 
every individual inhabitant of that State becomes 
subject to the Government of the United States. 
It becomes his duty to obey its laws, and no State 
can release him from that duty. If he refuses and 
resists he commits a crime against the Government 
of the United States, and no State can release 
him from his individual responsibility for that 
crime or from its punishment. No Slate can, 
therefore, -possibly take any one of its citizens out 
from the jurisdiction of the National Government : 
—still less can it take them all out. In other 
words, no State can possibly secede. No 
individual in any State can sever his 
connection with the National Government,— 
or absolve himself from the obligation to obey its 
l aw8 — nor can all the citizens of any State, acting 
as individuals, as a State Government, in conven- 
tion, or in any other form, release themselves, or 
release anybody else, from the supreme obligation 
which rests upon them to obey the laws of the 
United States. Whatever individuals may do to- 
ward that end, is a crime. Whatever States may 
do, is a nullity. States, as such, cannot commit 
crimes. A crime is a violation of some positive 
obligation. The Constitution does not impose 
positive obligations upon States, but only upon 
their individual citizens. It is, therefore, the in. 
dividual citizens of a State, and not the State as 
such, that is to be punished for crimes com- 
mitted against the United States. The State of 
South Carolina cannot be hung for treason.though 
every individual living in South Carolina may— 
and perhaps ought to be. [Laughter.] In its 
dealings with this rebellion, therefore, as in every- 
thing else, the Government deals exclusively 
with individuals, and not at all with States. Our 
armies are arrayed against the rebels, not against 
rebel States. When we come to inflict punish- 
ments for the crimes of the rebellion, we shall 
inflict them upon the individuals who have com- 
mitted them, and not upon the States in which 
they live. One of the penalties of treason is dis- 
franchisement ; but that is a penalty to be indict- 
ed, like all others, upon individual criminals, and 
not upon aggregates, or communities or States. 
A State cannot be disfranchised any more than it 
can be hung, as a State, and in punishment of 
crime. For other reasons and on other grounds 
the Constitution has conferred upon each 
House of Congress the right to judge of the quali- 
fications of its own members .—and Congress may, 
therefore, exclude members from any rebel State, 



and may thus disfranchise that State in its discre- 
tion ; but this is not designed as a provision for 
punishing crime but as a just deference to the 
dignity of Congress, and as a necessary precau- 
tion against abuses. Nor would such exclusion 
and disfranchisement imply that the State was no 
longer in the Union. If the citizens of any State 
are bound to obey the la>cs of the Union, that 
State is in the Union. That obligation is the 
just, constitutional test. Now will any man con- 
tend that the citizens of South Carolina, or any 
one of them, have been released, by their own 
act, by the act of that State, or in any other way, 
from their supreme obligation to obey all laws of 
the United States made in pursuance of the Con- 
stitution thereof? Certainly not. Then how can 
any man contend that South Carolina is not, in 
the eye of the Constitution, just as much in the 
Union as she ever was ? 

It is common to hear it said that the rebels, and 
all the rebel States, are "alien enemies," and 
must be treated as such. But if they are aliens, 
they owe us no allegiance— they are under no ob- 
ligation to obey our laws, and we have no right to 
make war upon them for the purpose of com- 
pelling their obedience. Yet all concede that the 
object of the war is precisely that and nothing 
more, and that it will end when, and only when, 
they return to their allegiance. The whole war 
thus proceeds on the assumption that these 
men still rest under a supreme obligation of al- 
legiance to the Constitution of the United 
g t D ates _that nothing has happened to release 
them from that obligation— that nothing which 
they or their States can do can possibly effect 
that release— and that until their independence, 
as a distinct and separate nation, is achieved and 
acknowledged, they will be bound to that alle- 
giance. How, then, can they be regarded or 
treated as aliens in any sense ? They are still 
citizens of the United States— offenders against 
its law, rebels against its authority, and therefore 
to be overcome in their rebellion, and to be pun- 
ished for their crimes. 

Now these are the reasons which lead me to 
discard wholly the theory of State suicide. No 
State has any power to take itself or any one of 
its citizens, from under the jurisdiction of the 
Government of the United States. Any act or 
ordinance which any State may pass for such a 
purpose is simply null and void. The obligation 
of obedience to tbe national law remains unim- 
paired—and with that obligation goes every right 
which the Constitution recognizes or confers. 
Every citizen of every State is entitled to-day to 
every civil right which he enjoyed before the re- 
bellion broke out, unless he has forfeited it by 
some crime for which deprivation of his rights is 
the prescribed and acknowledged penalty ; and in 
that case he can be restored to the enjoyment and 
exercise of his lost rights only by the remission 



12 



of that penalty by the proper authority. But up- 
on such remission he at once resumes them. 

But, after all, I attach very little practical im- 
portance to these discussions. The great work 
of restoring the Union is not to be carried on 
upon such a basis. It is a practical work, in the 
hands of a practical people, and it will be prose- 
cuted and perfected in a practical manner. In- 
deed, it is already going on, and is bringing about, 
from day to day, its practical results. Without 
waiting for the close of our metaphysical debates 
as to the proper mode of reconstructing the 
Union, the Union is rapidly taking the liberty of 
reconstructing itself. [Laughter and applause.] 
Societies, it must be remembered, are not 
mechanical contrivances — they are living organ- 
isms. They have a law of growth and a power 
of growth quite independent of our systems and 
of our schemes. They take shape and form 
from the vital principles, the essential sentiments, 
interests and impulses of their individual mem- 
bers, and this process we see is going on now in 
the rebel States every day. it has been said that 
even if we were to conquer the rebel States we 
could never convert their people into loyal citi- 
zens. But in spite of this plausible theory we 
see, as a matter of fact, that just as fast as the 
rebel armies are driven out of the rebel States the 
people of those States are not only willing but 
eager to return to their allegiance to the Consti- 
tution, and put themselves again under protec- 
tion of the National flag. It has been so in Mary- 
land — it has been so in Missouri, in Ten- 
nessee, in Lousiana, in Mississippi. And 
see now what has been already accom- 
plished. Of the actual States originally claimed 
and held by the Confederacy, extending from 
Chesapeake Bay to the Rio Grande, and from the 
Missouri and Ohio to the Atlantic and the Gulf, 
we already occupy and hold more than half. In 
other words, half of the Confederacy, territorial- 
ly regarded, is already reclaimed, and has been 
reconstructed into the Union : — and what has 
been done with that half may be easily done with 
the other. More than one half the white popula- 
tion ot all the original rebel States are at this 
moment living under the national flag. They 
have been brought back to their allegiance by the 
power of the Union arms, — by the overthrow and 
defeat of the rebel forces, and by the conseauent 
conviction in their minds that the rebel cause is 
lost, and that every consideration of their own 
welfare and that of their posterity requires them 
to abandon the rebellion and return to the Union. 
[Applause.] And if that has been accomplished 
with one-half the population of the rebel Confed- 
eracy, why, in the name of common sense, may 
it not also be done with the other? If one-half 
their people have discovered that the rebellion is 
a failure, a ruinous and disastrous mistake, why 
may not the other half make the same discovery ? 



Now in my opinion just as last as any rebel 
State is cleared of the rebel armies and held by 
tne Union forces, the people of that State will de- 
sire to resume their allegiance to the National 
Constitution. They will desire to elect members 
of Congress,— to reinstate their local Legislature 
and resume the exercise of all their rights and 
functions as citizens of a State under the Consti- 
tution of the United States. It will be the duty 
of the Government to hold by military authority 
possession and control of every rebel State until 
its people can act freely and without dictation in 
this matter, and until it is satisfied that a fan- 
proportion, if not an absolute majority, of 
them, are disposed thus to act. Using its supreme 
authority, moreover, in the exercise of the war 
power, the Government will have a perfect right 
to requre an oath of allegiance to the Federal 
Constitution as a condition of holding any State 
office or of voting for any officer, State or Nation- 
al. But I have no doubt that in every case where 
the people of a State may desire thus to resume 
their allegiance and their old relations to the 
Union, the Government will deal with them in 
the most liberal and tolerant manner. In Mr> 
Sewakd's letter to the French Government, de- 
clining its offer of mediation, he had the Presi- 
dent's authority for saying that their seats in 
both Houses of Congress awaited the arrival of 
representatives from the rebel States when- 
ever they might choose to send them ; and 
in his letter to ex-Mayor Wood, of New- 
York, President Lincoln has declared that 
if the people of the rebel States should lay 
down their arms, and resume their allegiance to the 
Constitution, a general amnesty should not be 
withheld, if it were necessary to enable them to 
elect members of Congress. We have thus the 
most full and explicit assurance of the desire and 
determination of the Government to aid the peo- 
ple of the rebel States in resuming their old rela- 
tions to the National authority, whenever they 
shall lay down their arms, and resume their alle- 
giance to the Constitution. Now, suppose the 
initial steps in this direction to have been taken. 
Suppose the people of Louisiana, after proper evi- 
dence of their sincerity and unanimity, and upon 
compliance with such just conditions and pre- 
cautions as the Government, in the exercise of 
the war power, may require, elect members of 
Congress, and send them to Washington. If 
they are admitted to their seats, that admission 
will settle the whole question of reconstruction 
so far as the State of Louisiana is concerned. 
And does any man doubt that they will be admit- 
ted? In spite of all the technical discussions of 
State rights and State suicide which are so fash- 
ionable — in spite of the earnest and universal de- 
sire that Slavery may be abolished — we shall see, 
in my judgment, an overwhelming verdict of the 
people in every Northern State, Massachusetts 



13 



and Vermont not excepted, in favor of their ad- 
mission. And the same thing will happen with 
every other rebel State as they may be success- 
ively cleared of the rebel troops, and may, one 
after another, seek to resume their old positions 
in the American Union. And thus, in my judg- 
ment, by a natural and regular process, slow pos- 
sibly, but certainly sure in its operation, will the 
Union be restored and the supremacy of the Con- 
stitution reestablished over the whole of the Na- 
tional domain. [Applause.] 

Now, I am quite aware of the objections and 
the cavils to which a reconstruction ol the Union 
on such a basis and by such a process as this is 
exposed. I know that men who have party in- 
terests to serve or personal feelings to gratify, — 
men who have hobbies to ride or pet theories to 
establish ; men who, with the best intentions in 
the world, think that the country can be saved 
only in their way and by their prescriptions, will 
regard this as altogether too prosaic a method 
of closing so grand and dramatic a chapter in the 
world's history as this rebellion, — as quite beneath 
the dignity of the occasion and wholly unsuited to 
the issues and opportunities of the age. But 
practical statesmanship, we must remember, is at 
best a prosaic affair — almost as prosaic as war it- 
self. The popular idea of a great General is that 
of a handsome man, in splendid uniform, on a 
prancing charger, witching the world with noble 
horsemanship, and pointing out to his multitu- 
dinous troops the paths of glory and the grave. 
The reality would show us a care-worn man, de- 
scending to the minutest and humblest du- 
ties of the camp, living on the coarsest 
fare, exposed to the roughest weather, por- 
ing over maps and cross-examining spies 
and deserters by night, and beset with 
a thousand cares which an hour's untimely storm 
ox the misconduct of a single regiment may con- 
vert into the most bitter disappointment and the 
most lasting blight of all his hopes. So is it in 
practical politics. Common sense outweighs the 
most brilliant theories, and while the world ad- 
gpiires and glorifies the latter it lives and is gov- 
erned by the former. 

Let me glance for a moment at some of the ob- 
jections urged against such a solution of the 
pending problem. It has been said, and by no 
less an authority than Major-Gen. Butler, that if 
we thus regard all the States as still in 
the Union we cannot elect a President, inas- 
much as that requires a majority of all the 
electors. Gen. Butler is mistaken. If he will 
consult the language of the Constitution, he will 
find that it requires a majority only of " all the 
electors appointed," and if the rebel States do not 
appoint any electors, they will simply be left out 
ot the reckoning altogether. If the election 
should go to the House, I admit, the result might 
be seriously affected, inasmuch as two-thirds of 



all the States are required for a quorum. But 
that contingency is not likely to occur, and the 
possibility ot it ought not, certainly, to control 
our action, on the general issue. 

But, it is said, it we allow the States thus to 
come back, the rebels will regain their power. 
They are still Secessionists at heart, and will 
send again to Congress the same men who have 
brought this rebellion upon us. I do not think 
there is any danger of that result. I do not fear 
the reappearance in the National Councils of the 
authors of this rebellion. John B. Floyd will 
never return to the Cabinet : one reason why he 
will not is that he is dead, and the other reasons 
therefore need not be mentioned. [Laughter.] 
Jefferson Davis and Mr. Mason and Robert 
Toombs might possibly attempt to return to the 
Senate : but they have been guilty of treason, and 
befoie they could resume their seats they would 
have to go through the troublesome and slightly 
damaging process of being hung. [Laughter.] I 
do not mean to say that they would not be quite 
as fit for those seats after being hung as before. 
I think they would — but as the Senate is 
the judge of the qualifications of its own 
members, they might have prejudices on the 
subject and decline to admit them to their old fra- 
ternity. [Laughter and applause.] One great fact 
we must bear in mind in this connection. These 
men have been the political leaders of the South- 
ern States. They have induced the Southern peo- 
ple to plunge into this rebellion. When it fails — 
when the great mass of the people in the Southern 
States find themselves utterly ruined in fortune 
and in social standing — when they iind themselves 
saddled with an enormous debt, discredited in the 
eyes of the world and humiliated in their own — do 
you suppose they will be likely to intrust their 
political fortunes longer to the men who, 
by false promises and for their own ends, 
have brought all this ruin and degradation 
upon them? Their rule is at an end. Their po- 
litical influence and leadership are gone forever- 
Political power in the South will pass into new 
hands — not of a class, but of the great body of 
the Southern people — of the men who live by 
their own labor, and not by the unpaid labor of 
slaves, and then we shall have a true Democracy 
— one that rests on equal rights — at the South as 
we ha\e had in the Northern States. [Applause.] 
Beside this, we have no right to insist upon any 
such adjustment, any such peace, as will secure 
the triumph ol any political party or gny political 
opinions. We seek to restore the Union. We have 

a right to insist that none but loyal men 

none but men who will swear allegiance to the 
Constitution of the United States, shall have part 
or lot in the conduct of its affairs; but further 
than that we cannot go. We cannot insist upon 
any party test. We cannot require adhesion to 
any party platform, or to any specific opinions on 



14 



any subject of legislative action,as a test of loyalty 
and a condition of exercising political rights. We 
cannot refuse representation in Congress to any 
State or section, lest their representatives should 
vote wrong. We have a right to require that 
every member and every voter should be in all 
his action a loyal man — a man pledged by his 
oath to uphold and maintain th6 Constitution of 
the United States. Until he breaks that oath he 
must be deemed loyal. For all the rest, — for the 
character of the laws which Congress may enact 
and the votes which its members may give, we 
must trust the intelligence and the wisdom of 
the people, working through the ordinary chan- 
nels of political action. 

But tnis process, it is alleged, may not rid us of 
Slavery. It is feared that Slavery may, in a 
Union thus restored, resume its old political in- 
fluence, and plunge us again into the horrors of a 
civil war. The war, therefore, it is urged, 
should never end until the last vestige of Slavery 
has been destroyed. I concede the full force of 
this objection. I share wholly and thoroughly the 
feeling from which it springs. But I have one 
or two things to suggest in reply to it. Even if it 
were certain that this would be the result of 
closing the war now, I do not believe we have 
any right to wage it longer for its prevention. 
The war is just while it is a war to put down this 
rebellion : I doubt very much whether, when 
that has been accomplished, we should have any 
right to continue it for the purpose of preventing 
another. But, however that may be, I do not 
deem it necessary to do so, even for the accom- 
plishment of that end. As I have already said, 
Slavery has already received its death-blow. Its 
power, as an element of national politics, is al- 
ready completely destroyed. No political party 
at the North will ever find its interest in court, 
ing its support, and any party which may make 
the attempt will be swept irom existence by the 
indignation of the Northern States. [Applause.] 

But more than this : — it seems to me certain 
that Slavery must perish, not only as a political 
power, but as a social institution, under the blows 
which the war has already inflicted. The Procla- 
mation of Emancipation, issued exclusively 
as a war measure, designed to weaken the 
military force of the rebellion and thus 
to aid the Union cause, has already 
worked the actual freedom of half a million 
slaves, and laid the foundation for the speedy en- 
franchisement of a million mofe. Let Gen. 
Grant, after defeating Bragg, push part of his 
army to Montgomery and Mobile, and the rest to 
Augusta in the rear of Savannah and of Charles- 
ton, and every remaining slave will be to all in- 
tents and purposes within our army lines, and thus 
set free, — and no slave thus made free can ever 
be returned to bondage again by any power, State 
or National, on the face of the earth. [Applause.] 



But the war has produced another result which 
is still more important and is well worth reflection 
Hitherto Slavery has been mainly a matter for 
agitation in the free States ; — the war is making i' 
a subject for practical action in the Slavt 
States themselves. [Applause.] Just as fast as 
the rebel armies are driven out of the rebel 
States and the people are thus left free to canvas 
their local interests, the very first subject to which 
they turn their attention is that of Slavery — and 
the issue is no longer whether it shall be touched 
or not — whether a man'shall be hung or roasted 
alive for talking about its abolition — but whether 
it shall be abolished instantly or allowed a few 
years of respite and of grace, that it may die 
more easily and with less disturbance of the pub- 
lic peace. [Applause.] Thus you see to-day that 
this is the great question which agitates and di- 
vides public sentiment in Missouri, in Kentucky, 
in Tennessee, in Maryland and in Delaware, — and 
so it will agitate and divide every Slave State, just 
as soon as it is delivered from the rebel power. 
Now that is precisely the state of things which I 
have long desired to see brought about. I have 
always thought that the Abolition party belonged 
in the Slave States, and had no business at the 
North, Abolitionism belongs where the thing to 
be abolished lives. [Applause.] And I am glad 
to see that it has at last taken root in its proper 
soil. It is for you in Delaware to abolish Slavery 
here, because it is lor your interest, for your honor, 
for your prosperity that it should be abolished. 
[Applause and cries of " We'll do it."] I do not 
doubt it. I have full and entire faith in the judg- 
ment and the action of the people in every case 
and on every subject where they are allowed fair 
play. I believe that you in Delaware will abolish 
Slavery because I know that it is for your inter- 
est to do so, and because I know also that sooner 
or later you will find it out. Maryland. I think, 
will do so also. Missouri, I do not doubt, will de- 
cide on immediate emancipation. In due time 
the people of Kentucky, and Tennessee and Lou- 
isiana and North Carolina will take the same 
course, and sooner or later we shall see 
every Slave State following their example. It 
may not all be done in one year — possibly not in 
ten ; — but even twenty would be a short term for 
the accomplishment of one of the grandest, most 
beneficent and most difficult reforms the world 
has ever seen. [Applause.] Under any contin- 
gencies, therefore, I think the apprehensions of 
those who fear to restore the Union lest the po- 
litical power of Slavery should be restored also, 
or the existence of that institution should be in- 
definitely prolonged, are without foundation. I 
am quite certain that they ought not to control 
their action on the general issues which this war 
involves. 

I will not detain you longer, fellow citizens, by 
any further discussion of these great themes. I 



15 



thank you most heartily for the patience you 
have thus far shown, which I fear I may have 
somewhat abused. You are engaged in a canvass 
for a member of Congress. His vote may possi- 
o " decide the complexion and the action of that 
body. If what I have said is just and true, it is 
your duty and your interest to elect that man, 
among the candidates, who will give the most 
heartv and effective support to the Government 
in the prosecution of the war. [Applause.] 
You know who he is better than I 



do. See to it, that he is elected. [Ap- 
plause and cries of "We will."] Give to the 
Government your full support. It deserves it, 
and your country needs it. One more vigorous 
and united effort on the part of the people of the 
whole country will quell the rebellion, restore 
the Union, and again raise to unquestioned su- 
premacy that glorious and glittering flag of our 
Republic — the emblem of liberty and of hope to 
all the world. [L*ud applause, and three cheers 
for the Union.] 



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